DOSE:	repeated	oral	Alcohol - Hard
	repeated	oral	Pharms - Clonazepam
			prazosin	(daily)
			Pharms - Fluoxetine	(daily)
			Pharms - Topiramate	(daily)

BODY WEIGHT:

210 lb

I am a US Army soldier, and have been in the service for 5 years. I deployed to Iraq during the surge for 15 months, which significantly impacted me, and I had a questionable suicide attempt while abusing alcohol shortly after returning home. That was a very difficult experience for me. I was hospitalized for a few days. I never got a chance to actually physically injure myself. I stayed in the Army, got moved to a different unit and a year later I deployed to Iraq again. This time I was stationed there for 12 months. This brings me to this past month, that this report is about.

I never chose to go on medication for depression anxiety or PTSD symptoms after my first tour overseas. This second time the depression and anxiety came back even stronger than before, and I decided that I wanted to take control. I went to Behavioral Health and told them all of my feelings that they would hear. I could have talked for hours, but there are so many people that need help at this clinic from being deployed that they cannot see you for very long. I was prescribed prozac, topamax, prazosin, and the Clonazepam. I was told to take the Clonazepam on an as needed basis for panic issues. I used it rarely for the first month, and did not notice much effect from the little 0.5 MG pills. Even after taking 3 at the same time, I didnt really notice anything.

A month after starting all of these meds, I have been experiencing some strong mood shifts, and periods of bad depression. I turned to alcohol, as I had after my first tour overseas. This time I took 4 of the little 0.5MG Clonazepam pills with the vodka that I was drinking. Very shortly, I was feeling very fuzzy. My memory is mostly intact, but it's as if I was in a dream that I did not have control over. I remember going to the cabinet multiple times and getting more of those little white pills. All in all I had 10 throughout the night. All of this started around 7PM.

I was definitely very intoxicated by drinking excessive amounts of vodka, but the pills took away any control that I would have had otherwise. I never even considered what I was doing. Its hard to explain, I did not question anything as it was happening. I went into my closet and got my nice new benchmade knife, sat down on my little sofa, and cut deep horrible gashes into my ankle. One at a time. I did not consider any consequences at the time... like scars, or the blood dripping all over my new area carpet in my barracks room, or reactions if someone found out. Remembering back on this, it all seems so surreal. I know that my depression played a significant role in why this happened, but I do not think alcohol alone would have done this to me. I literally had no control.

Sometime after cutting these lacerations into my ankle, I fell asleep with the knife at my feet. I woke up at 3 AM with blood dripping all over the carpet. My cellphone happened to be under my leg and it was covered in blood. My tile floor to the bathroom had nasty pools of blood and my pajama pants were wet and sticky from it. In a dreamlike state I took a painless shower and scrubbed my wounds. Normally I'm sure those gashes would have really hurt to get wet. It did not hurt at all, but they looked terrible. I could not get them to completely stop bleeding. Remembering back it just seems like a crazy dream of me cleaning my room at 3 AM of all the blood, and scrubbing my carpet. The next day I had to wrap my ankle in layers of paper towels before putting on my socks so the blood wouldn't seep through during physical training at 6 AM.

I'm pretty ashamed of myself. I have had to go to great lengths to cover this up. I bought an ankle brace that will cover it up, and I will feign a slight ankle injury just to hide the wounds till they can heal. I am sure they will scar because of how deeply I cut myself, so I may have to do something later. Maybe I will get a tattoo over it.

I do not think this would have happened on alcohol alone. I will never use large doses, especially in conjunction with alcohol, while in any kind of depressive state again. In the meantime I will continue to take my other antidepressants to help with my depression from my extended deployments.

Exp Year: 2011	ExpID: 89647
Gender: Male
Age at time of experience: 24
Published: Feb 3, 2022	Views: 933
[ View PDF (to print) ] [ View LaTeX (for geeks) ] [ Swap Dark/Light ]
Alcohol - Hard (198), Pharms - Clonazepam (125) : Military (48), Depression (15), Medical Use (47), Train Wrecks & Trip Disasters (7), Combinations (3)